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In this talk, Palestinian architect and historian Nadi Abusaada highlights findings from his forthcoming book on the work and legacies of a pioneering generation of Arab architects, specifically in the context of Mandate Jerusalem. The talk traces the professional trajectories of Palestinian architects and their development from the late Ottoman era and their continuities into the British Mandate period. Although these architects were working within the British colonial system, they nonetheless were able to forge their understandings of the architectural profession and modern architecture. Importantly, they were not working in isolation and considered themselves part of a broader quest for developing the architectural profession regionally within the Arab world.
Nadi Abusaada will also introduce his research project, Microcosm of a Nation, looking into the history of the Palace Hotel in Jerusalem and currently on view as part of ‘Guest Relations’. The conversation is followed by a Q&A moderated by Lucas Morin, Exhibitions Curator at Art Jameel.
Nadi Abusaada is an architect and a historian at ETH Zürich. He received his PhD in architecture from the University of Cambridge in 2021. He was previously the Aga Khan Fellow in Islamic Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is also the co-founder of Arab Urbanism. Nadi has curated and participated in exhibitions in Ramallah, Venice and Zürich and is currently working on shows in Montréal and Beirut.
Image: Construction Workers Inside the Palace Hotel, 1920s. Koç Üniversitesi Archives.
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